Colombia seized a monstrous amount of cocaine

A Colombian national policeman stands guard in front of packages of cocaine, which were confiscated in Turbo province near the border with Panama, May 15, 2016.
Colombia Police via Reuters
Colombian police say they have seized 8.8 tons of cocaine from drug-traffickers, in what the government claims is the largest domestic drug bust in the country's history.

Police say that the haul belonged to the Urabeños, Colombia's largest and most-feared drug cartel that is also known as the Clan Usuga, and is currently being specifically targeted by the government.

The authorities said the drugs — of which nearly 1.7 tons were found wrapped and apparently ready for export — were found in an underground stash beneath a banana plantation just outside the northwestern town of Turbo, near the border with Panama.

Colombia's defense ministry released a video on Twitter Sunday evening showing the massive haul of sacks and packaged bricks of cocaine, estimated to value $240 million, arranged on the floor.

Three suspects were captured and three escaped during the raid according to a statement from the police.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos took to Twitter to congratulate the officers involved in the operation.

"Operation in Turbo seized the largest amount in our history," he posted on Sunday afternoon. "Crushing blow to criminals."

The aggressively expansionist and heavily armed Urabeños gang has ties to demobilized paramilitary groups that once fought left-wing guerrillas. It operates throughout the country, often in small towns and villages, relying on drug trafficking, illegal mining, and extortion for income. They have also murdered and displaced civilians, often caught in the crossfire during confrontations with rebels or state forces.

The Urabeños are particularly powerful in the northwestern Urabá region, from which they take their name. The area is a valuable drug-trafficking hotspot owing to its access to both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

The group is believed to have connections to Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, and human rights groups suspect some members of the public forces are also involved in their operations.

The government claims to have captured 6,700 members of the group over the past five years. The US has offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the capture of their leader, Dario Antonio Usuga, alias 'Otoniel'.

The Colombian government currently estimates that the Urabeños are made up of around 2,000 active members.

Colombia ramped up efforts to combat drug trafficking in the Urabá region earlier this month, greenlighting the use of full military force against the Urabeños, including airstrikes. The same measures were also drafted against two, lesser-known groups: Los Pelusos and Los Puntilleros. An airstrike on an alleged Urabeños jungle camp last November killed 12 people. The operation was codenamed Agamemnon.

A soldier from the Seventh Division of the Colombian National Army looks on in front of a shack, which served as a make-shift cocaine laboratory, after members of the unit burn it down during an operation to eradicate coca plants at a plantation in Yali, northeastern Antioquia, Sept. 3, 2014.
Reuters/Fredy Builes

Some conflict monitoring groups said the measures were a dangerous idea both because they would grant the criminal organizations de facto political recognition, as well as risking civilian collateral damage.

The government's loud celebration of the weekend's seizure underlines the efforts it is taking to prove it is getting the upper hand against the Urabeños, but it's record-breaking dimensions are in dispute.

Colombia's defense minister, Luis Carlos Villegas, said seizures larger than the weekend's may have taken place at sea. It is well known that In April 2014, police seized seven tons of cocaine bound for Europe in a container in the seaport city of Cartagena.

Colombia, which is the world's largest producer of coca, the crop from which cocaine is made, produces some 487 tons of cocaine each year, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Last year, authorities seized 252 tons of the drug in total.